Debbie Levitt

Biography

Debbie Levitt, CXO of Delta CX, has been a CX and UX strategist, researcher, architect, and trainer since the 1990s. Debbie has influenced interfaces at Sony, Wells Fargo, Constant Contact, Macys.com, Silicon Valley startups, and companies you’d know that she’s not allowed to name. Clients have given her the nickname, “Mary Poppins,” because she flies in, improves everything she can, sings a few songs, and flies away to her next adventure.

Her 2019 “Delta CX” book and training teach companies how to improve customer satisfaction, predict and mitigate business risk, and increase ROI by investing in great customer experiences.

Keynote

Improving Agility by Using Customers’ Definitions of “Quality” and “Done”

“Quality”… velocity, productivity, and efficiency? Improved performance? Few or no bugs? Meets stakeholder requirements? “Done”… we did what we planned? Fits business objectives? Coded, tested, documented, and deployable?

Remember our customers? The people paying our salaries? Their satisfaction is supposed to be our *highest* priority. But we fall in love with assumptions about users. We burn weeks coding, testing, merging, and releasing product guesses. We move to the next project, and are interrupted later when we learn that customers aren’t finding much value or quality in that last release. Guessing, assuming, and being reactive aren’t Agile or Lean. Six Sigma would be ashamed of you.

You ignored the customers’ definitions of “quality” and “done” when you built and deployed features you *knew* wouldn’t be right for customers. Someone called garbage “done,” shipped it, and claimed we’ll “fix it later.” Not Agile or Lean!

“Architecting for customers’ needs and tasks” and “being Agile” shouldn’t be the polar opposites they often are now. No matter what an Agile coach, scrum master, or stakeholder decides, the customer decides what is “quality,” “done,” and “good enough.”

In this session, you’ll learn why “Design thinking,” “Lean UX,” “empathy,” and other trendy shortcuts work against user satisfaction. Learn how to change processes to improve agility, eliminate some Lean waste, and produce better customer outcomes.

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